Cheat: Cheatsheets for Command-Line Tools

Productivity Sauce

Sep 30, 2013 GMT

Dmitri Popov

Most command-line tools on Linux come with documentation accessible through the man command. But scrolling up and down the help file trying to figure out how to make a tool do what you want is not always the most efficient way to go. Enter Cheat, a simple Python-based tool that allows you to access cheatsheets for command-line tools. Once installed, the cheat command followed by the name of a specific tool returns a concise usage guide. Type, for example, cheat tar, and you should see a list of the most useful tar options and their usage.

Installing cheat is a rather straightforward affair. First, clone the project's GiHub repository:

git clone https://github.com/chrisallenlane/cheat.git

Switch then to the created cheat directory, and run the python setup.py install as root. In addition to the bundled cheatsheets, you can easily create your own. To do this, create a ~/.cheat directory, then place there a text file named after the desired command. For example, if you want to add a cheatsheet for the nmap tool, add the nmap text file in the ~/.cheat directory. Use then your preferred text editor to add cheatsheet's content to the file.